The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto company Unicoin and three executives on Tuesday night on fraud charges, saying the company raised over $100 million for tokens that were not actually backed by the real estate its executives claimed.

The SEC sued Unicoin, CEO Alexander Konanykhin, former board chair Maria Moschini, senior vice president and general counsel Richard Devlin and former chief investment officer and investor relations officer Alejandro Dominguez on securities law violations,

Among its allegations, the SEC said Unicoin never actually owned the real estate properties it told investors it had acquired, and that those properties’ values were inflated.

«For example, between September 2023 and January 2024, the Promoting Defendants announced acquisitions of properties in Argentina, Thailand, Antigua, and the Bahamas, purportedly with appraised values totaling more than of $1.4 billion; in fact, the majority of those transactions never closed and the actual combined value of the four properties was no more than $300 million,» the complaint said.

The defendants also «overstated the Company’s sales» of its rights certificates, suggesting in social media posts and to investors that it had raised far more funds than it actually had, the SEC alleged. While Unicoin claimed it had made $3 billion in sales by June 2024, it actually never sold more than $110 million in its rights certificates, according to the complaint.

Moreover, Unicoin advertised its rights certificates, including by promising outsized returns of up to 9 million percent, the SEC alleged, pointing to marketing efforts on taxi cabs, ferries, «office building elevator screens,» digital billboards, coasters, television programs, news websites and public wi-fi kiosks.

«Additional examples of the Promoting Defendants’ statements include: (a) social media and website posts that touted potential returns of 9,000,000% based on bitcoin’s 9,000,000% growth in the past 10 years and told investors to ‘take advantage of the early days of Unicoin and get them today,’ highlighting that ‘Bitcoin experienced a tremendous rise in value, transforming early adopters into millionaires, and even billionaires,'» the filing said.

Read more: Unicoin CEO: Why Are We Still Under the SEC’s Gun?

Unicoin received a Wells notice from the SEC last December, informing the company that the regulator — then under the leadership of former Chair Gary Gensler — intended to file securities fraud charges. Last month, Konanykhin sent a letter to Unicoin’s shareholders, informing them that the company had rebuffed the SEC’s attempt to settle the charges, rejecting what he described as an “ultimatum” to attend a settlement negotiation meeting by April 18.

“We declined to show up,” Konanykhin told CoinDesk in an April interview, adding that the SEC had made certain pre-meeting demands he deemed “unacceptable” and claiming that the SEC’s probe had caused “multi-billion-dollar damages” to the company.

Read more: Unicoin CEO Reject’s SEC’s Attempt to Settle Enforcement Probe

Neither Konanykhin nor a spokesperson for Unicoin responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment by press time. In a press release shared earlier this year in response to a Wall Street Journal article, a spokesperson said, «Unicoin, the only fully U.S.-registered, U.S.-regulated, U.S.-audited, and U.S.-publicly reporting cryptocurrency company, has consistently complied with all regulations.»

According to court documents, the SEC is seeking disgorgement and civil penalties.

Apex Group, a financial services provider with more than $3 trillion in assets under administration, said on Tuesday it had acquired a majority stake in Tokeny, a Luxembourg-based firm that helps institutions tokenize real-world assets (RWA) on public blockchains.

According to the deal, Apex expects to take full ownership of Tokeny over the next three years, after first investing in the company in late 2023, Apex said in a press release. The companies did not disclose the terms of the acquisition in the press release, and a spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

The acquisition comes as more traditional financial firms are looking at tokenization as the next frontier in capital markets, using blockchain technology for moving assets like bonds, funds and other securities.

For institutional investors, the process promises simpler cross-border transactions, faster settlement and new liquidity channels. Tokenized assets could be a $18 trillion market by 2033, a report from BCG and Ripple last month projected.

«Tokenization is a foundational shift in how assets will be managed, distributed, and accessed,» Apex founder and CEO Peter Hughes said in a statement. «Our strengthened partnership with Tokeny is key to delivering on our vision to be the infrastructure provider in the digital era of finance.»

Tokeny’s infrastructure has already been used to tokenize over $32 billion in assets, supporting the full life cycle of tokenized securities — from issuance to transfer to compliance — and is best known for establishing ERC-3643, a widely used standard for compliant digital asset transfers, the press release said.

Apex said Tokeny’s team and tools will be brought in-house, and it aims to offer clients a turnkey infrastructure for blockchain-based finance, layering smart contracts and decentralized protocols on top of its traditional services.

Read more: Ripple, BCG Project $18.9T Tokenized Asset Market by 2033

«Sell in May and go away,» goes the Wall Street adage for equity markets every summer. For bitcoin BTC, though, some analysts say this season could mark a break from tradition.

«As we get into the European summer months, the sense is it’s more likely a case of ‘buy in May and go away’ than any significant headwinds or selling pressure,» said Paul Howard, director at crypto trading firm Wincent in a market note.

A confluence of positive regulatory developments around digital assets in the U.S. and increasing institutional buying both via exchange-traded funds and spot allocation is poised to push BTC higher in the next months, Howard said.

U.S.-traded spot bitcoin ETFs, for example, pulled in $667 million in net inflows on Monday with BTC pausing just below its January record, underscoring persistent demand, he noted. The vehicles attracted $3.3 billion in May, per SoSoValue. On top of that, there’s been a flurry of companies joining Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) adding bitcoin to their treasury, financed by debt and stock issuances.

«As we edge closer to a $4 trillion market cap for digital assets, we will see BTC cross all-time-highs in the coming weeks,» Howard said. The total crypto market cap currently stands at around $3.3 trillion, per TradingView data.

Historically, summer months have been slow for crypto assets, but macro and political forces are also converging in ways that could disrupt the typical seasonal lull, analysts at crypto analytics firm Kaiko pointed out.

The Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision in June will precede Donald Trump’s July 9 tariff deadline for trade partners, both of which could trigger market-wide volatility, the report said.

Bitcoin options markets are already flashing signs of investor anticipation, Kaiko analysts said. Strike prices at $110,000 and $120,000 for the June 27 expiry have drawn heavy volume, suggesting bets on BTC making a record-breaking move, the report noted.

Bitcoin briefly topped $107,000 during the Tuesday session, gaining 1.2% over the past 24 hours and trading just 2% below its January record high.